Vessel
by JessenoSabaku
Summary: Shino knows it's not his own smile that plays on his lips—no, "Shino" had never once in his life smiled. Oneshot. Angst. Character death. Inspired by "Coward," the beautiful oneshot by Ivy of Midnight. Hopefully the K  rating will do!


**Disclaimer: I own none of Naruto. But I love the series! Go buy some volumes of the manga and take a look at the anime. This is just a piece done by a fan for fun and writing critique. Please view it only as so. Now with that out of the way, let's begin!**

Inspired by the outstanding story "Coward" written by Ivy of Midnight. Please take a look at this and the other wonderful stories written by this author.

**(XXX)**

If Shino had any complaints, there was only one.

After all didn't everything turn out magnificently? So many good things changed in his heart even though so many people cried and fell into despair. Even the great Hyuuga Neji was brought to tears. Didn't Neji himself shake him by his shoulders and scream and ask him what the hell was wrong with him?

If Shino knew the answer to that he would've told Neji before he even asked. He couldn't understand himself why he was so happy, why he'd ditched his heavy clothes that had hidden all of him for such a long time, and why he'd started working on taijutsu so much that he barely knew how to control the parasitic insects inside him anymore. He didn't know any of the answers to the questions people bombarded him with.

All he knew is that while everything felt so wrong, he knew that somehow it had to all be right. Looking at how dressed up _they_ were lying in their coffins, their faces so at peace, all the wounds that felled them covered with silk and fashion, surely such a beautiful representation of their life and final goodbye to the earth had to be right.

If someone like him was the only of them who survived, someone so selfish who only thought about how he was so seemingly unloved and imperfect until _their_ love for him warranted their deaths, there had to be some kind of reason. He wanted to reprimand Neji for abandoning his views of fate—it was obviously fate that he was the only one left behind, and there was a purpose that awaited his action and his observation.

With those beautiful smiles they wore as they took their dying breaths … it would be wrong not to smile in return. Shino knows it's not his own smile that plays on his lips—that wolfish grin couldn't possibly belong to him. The gentle curving of his lips when he saves a child's kite from a tree is an action he was not born knowing how to do. No—"Shino" had never once in his life smiled.

And on the inside, there was no smile to ever be found. The hollowness inside betrayed all of the changes that were on the outside. As he worked hard and became stronger, as he became kinder to all those around him and smiled and laughed, on the inside he bled and died … just like they had. Slowly bleeding out without a person to see his pain as he beat his head against the wall, willing his brains to fall out and slide down onto the floor.

But now he had new friends, people who respected him and loved him just as _they_ had. Wasn't that what happiness was—acceptance and acknowledgement? Isn't that what he'd always wished for, and what Naruto had chased for so long? He was fed and clothed, strong and sturdy, and always reliable. He had friends to hug him and smile at him and call him a brother, even if the person they were calling a brother wasn't really him. Didn't he have it all? But the truth was that what he showed on the outside was not him at all—on the inside the person who he was and always would be stared out as he watched his shell execute its duties perfectly.

They'd be proud, wouldn't they? Even though they were dead, they lived on—it surely was right, wasn't it? It felt so good to feel their hands on his shoulders, guiding the exoskeleton to do as they had done for so many years, uplifting those who could not lift themselves from despair. Surely this was the perfect way for them to be remembered. So why weren't people satisfied? Even though it was _them_ smiling as he approached their coffins … why couldn't people see it? Neji knew _her_ well, didn't he? Couldn't he see her smile on his face and in his eyes? Why didn't he understand?

And what about Hana and Mrs. Inuzuka? Didn't they know that when they slapped him and stormed away they slapped their brother and son, and abandoned him at the grave? And what about Naruto? Why did he only look at them in disappointment when for so long he only had respect and love for them? Sure, Shino wasn't happy … but that wasn't the point of it all. It was that _they_ would continue to make others happy. Didn't everyone see it wasn't Shino that they were talking to anymore?

Despite all the roses that cropped up as he dazzled people with kindness and spread laughter and joy, surely Shino still had regrets. But if he had any, he was sure there was only one. A regret that thwarted everything he'd become and everything he was sacrificing himself for. A regret that made the living memory he'd created useless … and made him face the madman that he was.

The only thing that he questioned was something very simple and small that everyone has asked themselves at some time or another.

_Why did they have to die?_


End file.
